


It's a Wonderful Life

by laylee



Category: Sports Night
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-07 15:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laylee/pseuds/laylee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It suddenly occurs to Casey that he has a rather wonderful life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Wonderful Life

Danny talked about growing a goatee and Casey is glad he didn't because he would hate to see that wonderfully expressive mouth covered up by a lot of unnecessary facial hair. Not that he has anything against facial hair - shaving is the bane of his existence and if he had his way, he'd do it once a week tops - he just doesn't want to see it on Danny.

The first time they shared a hotel room on assignment, Casey had to stop himself from sitting on the bed where he had an uninterrupted view of the bathroom. From that vantage point it was easy to just sit and watch Danny as he stood before the mirror and shaved, naked except for a towel wrapped low on his hips. He was completely at a loss as to why he had such a sudden need to watch his best friend shave. He had seen Danny shave many times in the past and never before had he felt such a rush of desire at the thought of the razor gliding over Danny's stubbly cheeks. It was both terrifying and exhilarating.

Years later, he doesn't find it at all strange to sit on the edge of the bathtub and watch Danny shave. He is completely comfortable with the fact that they are both wearing nothing but towels and that every now and then he will reach out and run a hand up Danny's leg or scratch at a ticklish patch of skin over his ribs.

Danny snorts and bats his hand away, saying, "Stop it man, you'll make me cut myself."

Casey grins at him and tells him to move his lazy ass or they'll be late for the tip-off.

~*~*~

Casey watches Danny move through the crowd with his baseball cap drawn low, his shoulders hunched and a determined look on his face. The game doesn't start for another half an hour, but he knows that Dan is keen to get settled in his seat with beer and peanuts and a bag of pretzels. Danny likes to hunker down and get comfortable with his snacks and his beverages well in advance. Casey's not quite sure how he does it, but it's almost impossible to get him to move once the action starts, even to visit the john.

Their shoulders press together as they settle into their outrageously good seats. Danny sits back with his arms crossed over his chest, his legs out-stretched and his feet crossed at the ankle. He grins when a girl with curly brown hair asks for an autograph and grins some more when little boy and his father come up a few minutes later.

Casey is asked to sign as well but it's Danny who will bask in the afterglow of recognition. Casey knows that Danny loves the attention. He will pretend to blow it off like it's nothing, but really he loves it. It makes him feel needed and appreciated and loved. Casey wants to point out that he needs and appreciates and loves him, but Dan knows that already. It's the rest of the world he's unsure about.

The Knicks are in top form that night and times passes quickly. At half-time Casey goes to the men's room and then lines up to buy more beer while Danny minds the seats and fiddles around with his cell phone. When Casey returns with the beer and another bag of pretzels, Danny is signing yet another piece of paper for a skinny kid and his friends and for a brief moment Casey wants to tell them to get lost and leave Danny alone.

But then Dan looks up and gives Casey such a winning smile that he doesn't care that he has to share Danny with the rest of the world. He knows that Danny's smile is for him alone and ultimately, that's all that really matters.

~*~*~

They win their time slot for the fourth week in a row so Danny drags them out to some club to celebrate. Casey isn't a big fan of clubs. They play music he doesn't really understand, they're always too dark and too smoky and it's hard to have a coherent conversation with the constant doof, doof, doof in the background. But Danny's insistent and when he gets Natalie in on the ride, how is anyone to say no?

The club is small; trendy but not so much that it's unbearable, with a reasonably well-behaved crowd and drinks that don't cost a small fortune to buy. Casey doesn't understand the music and having conversation without shouting is impossible, but there's a quiet niche tucked away from the dance floor with curtains and spongy couches. Once they've commandeer that it's actually not too bad.

Jeremy sits next to him, clearly not really liking it but not hating it either. A Miller clutched in one hand, Casey's eyes stray toward a group of women who seem to be dressed in nothing but sequined handkerchiefs. Dana is sitting to his right, bouncing along with the music and her third martini and occasionally adding to the conversation they'd been having about the merits of extended World Series coverage.

On the dance floor, Danny is sleek and a gorgeous in artfully faded jeans and a black T-shirt. He and Kim and Natalie dance together like there is no one else in the room and, if Casey didn't know any better, he'd swear they'd be heading home for some kind of ménage-au-trios when the night ends. He doesn't feel jealous that Kim has her fingers hooked into Danny's belt loops, or that Natalie is grinding herself against his ass. They're all smiling and laughing like old friends out for a good time and judging by the way Danny keeps looking at him, he knows how the night will end.

Danny is hyperactive in the cab on the ride home, still buzzing from the music and and the atmosphere and the alcohol. Casey makes him take a shower before they go to bed because he smells like cigarettes and beer and Kim's perfume. Casey also has a shower and stands under the spray until his skin turns pink and the pads of his fingers have shriveled. He dries off, pulls on clean boxers and sighs appreciatively as he slips between the sheets and takes Danny into his arms.

Danny kisses him on the shoulder and asks, "Did you have a good time? You didn't dance."

"You danced enough for both of us," Casey says and kisses him in return.

"I've got boogie shoes, baby!" Dan exclaims happily and Casey laughs as they roll around under the covers.

~*~*~

Casey meets Lisa for lunch and they spend the entire time arguing back and forth about what to do with Charlie during the coming school holidays. Lisa wants to take him to Arizona with her and her new boyfriend but Casey doesn't see why he can't stay in New York with him just for once.

"You have him most of the year while I have to put up with Wednesdays and every second weekend. It won't kill you let him stay with me for a couple of weeks."

"Casey, you work twelve hours a day until midnight, six days a week," Lisa reminds him sourly. "He'll either be stuck with Debra in the apartment or hanging around the office with you. What sort of a vacation is that for a kid?"

Casey has to admit that it doesn't sound like fun but he's had it with Lisa monopolizing Charlie's vacation time and is determined not to let her trample over his wishes again.

"I'll get some time off," he says impulsively. "They owe me about a gazillion weeks anyway and we can go camping or something."

Lisa looks at him dubiously, stabs at her chicken salad with her fork and says she'll think about it.

When Casey gets back to the office, he throws himself onto the couch and starts running scenarios through his head that will convince Dana to give him a week off. Danny bops in a few minutes later, pretends to not notice him and nearly sits on him.

Casey swears and sits up. Of course Danny immediately senses that something is afoot and he spends the rest of the afternoon alternately bullying Casey into opening up about his troubles or saying stupid things to make him laugh. And because there has never been any love lost between Danny and Lisa, he is more than willing to brainstorm ideas to keep Charlie in New York for the summer.

By the time they're in wardrobe, changing for the show, they've managed to come up with at least two plausible explanations as to why Casey needs time off at such short notice. Casey is buttoning his shirt when Danny comes up and places his hand over his heart.

"Casey, Charlie's not gonna stop loving you if you don't take him camping," he says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Casey grabs Danny's hand and dusts a kiss over his knuckles. "Yeah, I know. But I want to."

Danny takes his hand back and smirks. "Then let's go camping, baby!"

Casey is on fire that night and Dana loudly declares that she will give him anything he desires as long as he keeps giving her shows like that. Dan grins at him like a maniac and Casey tries to remember where he put his hiking boots.

~*~*~

On Monday news comes through that a nineteen year-old star linebacker has been killed while driving too fast on a potent mix of pills and alcohol. His eighteen year-old girlfriend, who was with him when he ran his car off the road and wrapped it around a tree, will live but she will suffer from paralysis and brain damage for the rest of her life.

In the days that follow Danny becomes increasingly quiet and withdrawn. He goes home alone every night, refuses to join the crew for drinks at Anthony's and speaks only when spoken to during rundown meetings. His writing is as sharp as ever and on screen he's animated and completely professional. It's only when he's not in front of a camera that he folds in on himself and retreats to a place where no one can reach him.

Casey tries not to let it get to him, but it's hard. Every time something happens to send Danny reeling he feels his own world tilt at a decidedly uncomfortable angle. His only comfort is that he knows, instinctively, that it won't last. This isn't the kind of deep funk Danny got himself into during that terrible period leading up to Daft Day 2000. It's just a temporary glitch and eventually Danny will work his way out of it.

Soon, Casey hopes. Very soon.

On Thursday Danny spends an hour talking to Isaac then goes to his appointment with Abby. When he returns to the office, he startles Casey into dropping his sandwich by making a joke about soccer. The next day he actually accepts Natalie's invitation to go get tacos with her at lunchtime and gives his first real smile in days. The day after that, Danny spends a full hour ranting about Canada's three downs rule and that afternoon, he accidentally on purpose stumbles over the threshold into Starbucks so he can cop a feel when he bumps into Casey. As Danny's hand squeezes his ass, Casey's world finally tilts back into its proper place.

~*~*~

It's Sunday and it's raining. Casey is going nowhere fast with the article he is supposed to be writing about the forthcoming NHL season and he's at the point where typing and deleting the same sentence over and over gain is the only thing he feels competent to do. Dan is sprawled on the couch, sound asleep, while Charlie has vanished into his room and the muffled thud of music indicates that he is probably not doing his homework.

They had all these plans for the day, but first Danny slept in, then the rain came while they were at IHOP eating a late breakfast and it was too wet to go the park and shoot some hoops. They couldn't agree on a movie, they didn't particularly feel like braving the wilds of Barney's or Bloomingdale's and the new dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum appealed to no one.

"Could we be any more pathetic?" Danny asks as they sit in a puddle of indecision. "We're three intelligent guys living in the greatest city in the world…"

"And yet here we sit," Casey interrupts.

"Here we sit," Charlie echo's his father.

"We're pathetic," Danny concludes and no one disagrees with him.

In the end they go back to the apartment and bum around there for the rest of the day - watching TV, making hot dogs for lunch and reading the Sunday papers cover to cover. At four o'clock, Casey sends Charlie off to his room to start on his homework and he sits down at his desk to write while Danny watches a Hepburn/Tracy movie on TV. Dan nods off about half an hour later and with Charlie happily ensconced in his room Casey is left alone to ponder the wonderful world of professional hockey while Danny snores softly and Kate and Spence bicker on the small screen.

But Casey can't concentrate on hockey and the words he writes make no sense. By five-thirty, when the shadows are staring to lengthen and the sky is growing dark, he gives it up as a lost cause, closes the document without saving any changes and turns his computer off.

He looks around the apartment for a minute, trying to decide his next move. Charlie's music has grown louder and reason tells him he should go and make him turn it down and tell him to get on with his homework. But he remembers only too well his own resentment every time his father told him to 'turn that racket down' and he swore he would never take such a heavy-handed approach with his own son. So he ignores the rhythmic thump and flops into the armchair opposite the couch and watches Danny sleep in the fading light.

Danny is flat on his back with one hand resting on his chest and the other flung over his head. His sweater has rucked up to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of skin and there is a small hole in the toe of his left sock. Casey wants to kneel at the foot on the couch and suck on Danny's navel until he wakes up. But he won't because Charlie is in the apartment and seducing his best friend in his living room while his son studies down the hall just isn't on. Instead he settles for watching the steady rise and fall of Danny's chest and listening to his soft, gusty snores as obscene thoughts of what he'll do when they finally have a moment alone rampage through his mind.

Sitting there in the gathering dark, it suddenly occurs to Casey that he has a rather wonderful life. He gets to work in the industry he loves, with people he loves even more. He has a certain amount of fame, a nice apartment and a son he adores. Sure there are glitches. His marriage is a less than stellar mark on his record, while Sally, Dana, Pixley and the other women that followed never managed to fill the gap in his life that he always assumed they would. He's still not very good at opening up about his feelings and pride inevitably goes before a fall when it comes to his ego. But when he gets too big for his boots, Danny considers it his duty to cut him down to size and he's always had difficulty saying no to Danny.

Dan snuffles and shifts a little. Night has finally succeeded day and Charlie will be looking for his supper fairly soon. However Casey is quite content to just sit and watch Danny sleep by the glow of the TV. Tomorrow he'll go to work and do his show and hopefully people will say nice things about him. Or at least admit that he has some idea about what he's doing. And maybe he'll even make the list for the third year in a row. Afterwards he'll go home with Danny and he'll turn his thoughts into actions because, if you're going to be in love with someone, it might as well be your best friend. Who else knows you so well? Who else can put up with your moods in all their forms and still be happy that you're there?

Danny shifts again and somewhere in the apartment a door bang's open and another bangs shut. The noise finally dislodges Danny from sleep and he opens a pair of bleary brown eyes and blinks at Casey.

"Hey."

"It lives," Casey deadpans.

"Funny, Case."

Danny levers himself upright, yawns and stretches, making his sweater hike up so that even more of his stomach is exposed. Casey thinks of his lips traveling over smooth skin and muscle and shivers in anticipation.

"Mmm, hungry," Danny mutters, scratching his stomach. He reaches over to snap on the end table lamp, blinking in the sudden light as he peers at Casey. "Whatcha thinkin'?"

Casey shrugs. "Nothing much. Just life and stuff."

Danny grins at him. "'S a wonderful life, Casey."

Casey can't help but agree.

 

FIN


End file.
